After a time Dick spoke.
'Listen to the river,' he said.
'Rum, ain't it?' replied Chippy. 'Daytime it didn't seem to mek' no noise at all. Now yer can't hear nothin' else.'
The river, as a river always does, had found its voice in the dark: it purred and plashed, while over a shallow some distance below, its waters ran with a shrill babbling, and a steady roar, unheard by day, came up from a distant point where it thundered over a weir.
'Good job we made a rattlin' fire afore we turned in,' remarked the Raven; 'seems like comp'ny, don't it?'
'Rather,' said Dick; and both boys lay for a time watching the dancing gleams, as the good beech logs blazed up and threw the light of their flames into the depths of the hanger which rose above the camp.
Sleep came to Dick without his knowing it, but his sleep had a rude awakening. He woke with the echo of a dreadful cry in his ears. For a moment he looked stupidly about, utterly at a loss to discover where he was. Then the cry came again—a horrible, screaming cry—and he sat up, with his heart going nineteen to the dozen.
'Chippy!' he cried, 'are you awake? What was that?'
'I dunno,' said the Raven, sitting up too. 'But worn't it awful?'
The cry came again, and the two boys, their heads still heavy with sleep, were filled with horror at its wild, wailing note.